Adeste Fideles
by GranthamGal
Summary: Robert and Cora's engagement is not without a few obstacles. Written for the 2016 Cobert Holiday Fanfic Exchange.
1. Chapter 1

_October, 1889_

Anyone who observed the couple walking through St. James's Park would have thought them the very picture of propriety and elegance. The young woman walked with her hand wrapped carefully around the gentleman's extended arm. Her emerald green silk afternoon dress was striking against the browning leaves of the trees, and her dark hair was swept beneath an equally becoming hat made of straw and feathers. The man wore a similarly smart ensemble; his sable brushed cotton town coat complimented the woman's dress, and though the woman's hand made a wrinkled imprint on his sleeve, their slow, easy walk seemed effortless and well-practiced.

A companion trailed several yards behind them, allowing the couple a modicum of privacy.

Only someone close enough to hear their conversation, though, could begin to understand the troubles that plagued the two young people on this October afternoon.

It was Cora who spoke first, breaking a long silence as they reached the Blue Bridge.

 _"Do you ever think we should just stop doing this?"_

Robert jerked to a stop, his arms lolling to his sides almost instinctively.

"There's nothing wrong in it," he murmured, knowing the words to be untrue even as he spoke them.

Cora turned away from his downturned face and looked across the bridge toward Duck Island.

"As lovely as this afternoon has been, as lovely as all the afternoons have been, I can't help thinking we're being rather reckless."

"But, Cora—"

Robert reached for her gloved hand, his thumb making a pass over her fingers. He stood awkwardly before her, shifting from one foot to another as he caught a glimpse of her chaperone standing now a bit too close for comfort. He knew that Cora had been paying the woman, five shillings a week, to maintain the ruse that Cora went out in the afternoons to pay calls and attend teas. And he knew, too, that he was complicit in this scheme of theirs; he had, in fact, been the one to first suggest it.

It had started nearly a month earlier, though they'd been in and out of one another's company since nearly six months before.

The season was supposed to have ended with their engagement. Robert had been courting Cora Levinson since nearly the start of the spring. Lady Delvile's April ball had been the prelude to it all; they'd danced an unabashed three waltzes together and soon after Robert began popping up at the Levinson's London residence with more consistent regularity. Cora was invited to luncheon at Grantham House where his family was welcoming but perfunctory. His mother had clicked her tongue in displeasure when Cora lumped spoons of sugar into her tea, but their other grievances with the potential match remained largely unarticulated due to the common knowledge of her fortune.

All through the summer their courtship continued. Robert took Cora along to the Royal Ascot and the Henley Regatta. He ignored his friends' less than subtle ribbing about him actually courting Cora's fortune, and tried his best to learn more about her. His vague feelings of concern over the thought of marrying for money were soon blurred by his growing feelings for the intelligent, kind American girl who was very clearly smitten with him.

By August he felt himself rather smitten, though certainly not in love.

He asked his father for his grandmama's engagement ring and enthusiastically slipped it on Cora's finger when she accepted his proposal during a walk in the very same park where now they stood.

It had all fallen apart only two weeks later.

Their parents had been the ones to blame, at least in Robert's estimation. He and Cora had watched like silent bystanders as their fathers attempted to negotiate terms of the dowry. Isidore Levinson was adamant that the money would remain in Cora's name; a trust would be established, he argued, and only money absolutely necessary to the health of the estate could be withdrawn, and only with his approval. Robert's father had taken the offers rather badly, had ranted and raged about Americans and their cocksureness, their inability to understand the nuance of the English aristocracy and the needs of a vast estate.

Bitter, tactless letters and telegrams were sent back and forth. And before Robert or Cora knew quite what to do, their parents declared the whole enterprise hopeless.

The ring was returned by messenger, and Robert found himself unexpectedly heavy-hearted when a letter from Cora did not follow.

Another two weeks passed with no contact between the erstwhile couple. Each passing day found Robert more forlorn. His parents had packed up and returned to Downton, leaving with similar expressions, though Robert considered their sadness related more to the financial quicksand they were in rather than grieving the loss of an almost-daughter in law.

The season had passed—it was too late now for him to make a new match.

But two days before Robert was to return to Downton (his stay only having been prolonged by an invitation from his sister and her husband to stay at Eaton Square), the winds began to change again. He was walking through the park, eyes fixed nowhere particularly, when he quite literally ran into Cora on the Blue Bridge.

Their mutual expressions of astonishment revealed more than any declarations of emotion possibly could, and before Robert could think of anything clever or even useful to say, Cora had burst into tears before him. They seated themselves on a bench and spoke for nearly an hour, Cora's ever-present companion looming in the distance. They spoke continuously, both repeating their disappointment over the botched engagement. Cora fiddled with her bare ring-finger and Robert fought the urge to clasp her hand in his own. She had been so very nearly his to comfort.

When they stood, finally, aware that their walks had been extended for much longer than either had anticipated, they appeared ready to part. But, yes, it _was_ Robert—now that he thought back over it—who had called out her name, had practically begged her to wait. In too many words, for he tripped over the stilted sentences that came out nervously, he told her he still wanted to be married to her, wanted it more than anything.

He promised, before she could protest, that he would speak to his parents, that somehow they would find a way to set things to rights. Cora, perhaps naïve, perhaps hopeful, had protested only once, explaining that she would never compromise herself to any sort of indecent proposal.

And so they agreed that each would make their best effort, and that until a resolution could be found it would be the sensible thing to continue to spend time together.

Which is how the handsome couple found themselves on the bridge in St. James's Park once more, a month later, still trapped in Limbo.


	2. Chapter 2

_November, 1889_

Cora sat at her dressing table as March plaited her hair. The woman was silent, as often she was, but Cora felt today that her maid's silence was rather an annoyance more so than a virtue. Although Cora was not one for gossip, she found lately that she was desperate for a confidante.

It had been nearly two months since she and Robert had begun to see one another again.

What had restarted in the hopes of a quick resolution for both families had become little more than disappointment after disappointment. Cora had expected to reason with her father, had hoped to bargain with her happiness, and explain to him that this—marrying Robert—was what truly would make her happy. However, her father had been called back to America on business only two days after her first meeting with Robert in the park. And in any case, his own appeals to his family had been no more successful.

Robert had been reluctant to return to Downton, for Cora remained in London. So he extended his stays in the city often, perhaps too often to remain unsuspicious, but was at Downton for only days at a time before his sister or some friend would call him back to town. And his father had been unwilling thus far to listen to reason. Their brief conversations had been terse, and Lord Grantham was increasingly consumed by Downton's quick decline. The estate was hemorrhaging money: and it was in far more trouble than Robert knew.

But there was no one at all to discuss any of it with. Cora was rightfully surprised that she had thus far eluded her mother's detection. Though, recent conversations had clarified all that. Martha Levinson had been completely engrossed in travel plans. At the start of the new year, she and Cora were to do the European tour. Finding a husband for her daughter in London had not worked out how she'd planned, despite all her eagerness. And so plans were drawn up to visit Switzerland, France, Greece, and Italy, all in the hopes that some exotic prince or nobleman would lay claim to Cora.

It was, Cora considered now, her very worst nightmare.

She shook her head, clearing the thought, and rather startled the maid.

"—That'll be all, March. But, oh, wait."

Cora pulled open a small drawer and snatched up some money, turning around slowly to extend her hand. Her maid took the coins without word and deposited them into an apron pocket.

"I'll be taking my tea at Lady Augusta's home this afternoon, March."

Cora said nothing more, but her maid nodded once in understanding. It had been easy—too easy, Cora thought—to bribe the woman to silence. For a girl who had been in the schoolroom only months before, bribing a servant to keep one's secrets seemed to scandalous to speak of.

The practice had only been enacted at the suggestion of Lady Rosamund who, taking pity on the star-crossed lovers, had often finagled invitations for the two at her luncheons—which were nearly always a pretext. She explained that it was rather easy to tempt a servant to one's cause. In any case, it all seemed to be a necessary evil.

For Cora was quite hopelessly in love with Robert Crawley.

* * *

Their tea that afternoon was a rather quiet one. It had been several days since they'd last met. Robert's sister had been kind enough to allow them both the use of her drawing room, and so Robert and Cora sat in both silence and privacy, save the occasional footman floating in and out with fresh pots of tea. Cora preferred it that way; the hum of the servants just beyond the door provided an illusion of propriety—nothing improper could possibly occur with so many people so very near.

And it was not as though Robert had ever suggested anything untoward. He had always been, befitting his station and his nature, a perfect gentleman. Apart from stolen kisses at balls and in more secluded places in the park, the two had hardly even gathered up the courage to embrace for more than a few moments at a time. Despite the clandestine appearance of their meetings, the relationship between the two remained rather chaste.

Cora feared that their families would not see their actions in quite the same light, however. Cora could tell that Robert, too, was out of joint on this particular afternoon. As they sipped their tea in a less than companionable silence, his foot tapped methodically against the floor, a habit that Cora already learned was a nervous one of his, something that would appear like clockwork at the first sign of trouble.

"How was your time at Downton?" Cora asked quietly, moving to pour them both more tea.

Robert startled from thought, and frowned. "Oh, fine. It was fine. It was—"

Cora raised her brow expectantly.

"—Oh, it was not fine at all," he sighed.

"I thought not," Cora answered.

"You'll think that I'm doing this purposely, that I'm stringing you along like some horrid, rakish character in a novel who steals a woman's honor and then disappears. But I tried, I really did."

"I believe you."

"Cora."

His tone was warning and clipped, prompting Cora to look down at the scone on her plate.

"I don't want you to have to believe me. I want all of this settled between us. I didn't want to believe it last month when you said it, but perhaps you're right: we cannot keep on as we have. It isn't right; it's not fair of me to keep you from making a better match."

Robert stood, then, exhaling loudly, and began to pace back and forth before the window.

"It's no good, Cora. We can't keep on like this. I won't allow myself to ruin your life."

"You're not ruining my life," Cora replied, standing to meet him with doleful eyes.

He looked at her for a long moment, then reached for her hands, leaned forward, and pressed a soft kiss to her lips.

"I've one more idea to try, darling, but you must promise me that if it does not work, we'll agree to part ways as friends. I do so very much want you happy, Cora."

"Robert, I—"

He stopped her once more with a kiss and so she nodded her assent.

"Alright. If that is what you wish."

"What I wish," Robert said quietly, with more emotion than was customary of him, "is for you to be my wife."

Cora smiled brilliantly and untwined their hands with more than a little reluctance.

"What is your idea, then?"

"I'd rather not say until I know whether it's worked or not."

"Well." Cora pursed her lips nervously.

"What is it?"

"It's just—Mother's told me that we are to leave on the first of the year for Paris. And next week will be the first of December."

"I promise that everything will be settled before then if I have my way."

"I believe you," she repeated.

"I'll just need one thing from you."

"What's that?"

"Your father's address in New York."


	3. Chapter 3

_December, 1889_

It was three weeks before a reply arrived in Rosamund's letterbox.

A footman delivered the note to him during breakfast, and Robert tore open the paper to get at the contents with the gusto of a child at Christmastime. His sister and brother-in-law hardly had time to ask what on Earth had possessed him before he threw down the pages onto the table and was up with a start, calling to the nearest footman to ring for his valet and make arrangements for him to be on the earliest train back to Downton.

"Have you any idea?" Marmaduke began.

"No, none at all, though I suppose it's something to do with Cora—"

She trailed off, rising from her place to reach for the discarded letter. Flipping open the creased pages, Rosamund's eyes swept to the bottom of the page, one line particularly visible from the otherwise scrawled text:

 _If you mistreat her, I will personally see to it that you are torn to pieces by wild dogs._

"What on Earth…"

Rosamund began to flip through the pages and was about to turn over the envelope when Robert bounded back through the door and snatched up the papers from her hands.

"It's rude to read other people's mail, sister dear. And, anyway, I'll need those."

He turned back as quickly as he'd come in and made for the door again.

"Robert, where ever are you going?"

"To speak to Papa," he called back, never pausing to look.

Rosamund heard him spring back up the stairs, his gait heavy, and less than an hour later, heard him disappear out the front door, valet and cases in tow.

And it was only a number of hours before Robert did indeed appear before his father, rather like a rumpled apparition, in the library of Downton Abbey. He'd come straight from the station, had bypassed the enormous Christmas tree in the hall, and had spilled into his father's inner sanctum without preamble.

"…You're not making any sense, Robert. What do you mean you've written to the Levinson girl's father?"

Robert thrust the pages at him once more, the pages he'd read over and over again on the train, pages that he hoped would somehow change the course of fate. "Just what I've said. I wrote to Cora's father because I want to marry her."

"That's all well and good, Robert. But you know the situation. And where do you get off calling her Cora?"

His father was frowning now, and stood to meet Robert's gaze.

"She's the woman I'm to marry. I'll call her by her name," Robert said quietly, not daring to break his father's steady, intent look. He knew that if he equivocated now, he would never gain the respect he needed.

"Are you, then?"

Robert nodded. "Cora and I have agreed. So long as we could sort it all out. And we have." Once more he gestured toward the papers in his father's hand.

" _We?"_

Feeling no point in keeping up the charade, Robert nodded once more. "I never stopped seeing Cora."

" _Bloody hell,_ " came his father's reply. And then: "please tell me you haven't gotten the girl pregnant."

"No, Papa," Robert shouted, growing agitated and red in the face. His tone was laced with petulance and a youthful indignation that his father very nearly respected. "I've come because I'm going to marry Cora. I've sorted it all out."

Then, when his father remained quiet, finally looking down at the letter in his hands, Robert amended—

"I love her."

Patrick Crawley exhaled then, and returned his gaze to his son's forlorn expression. He allowed the pages to once more elude his attention.

"Well, we better ring for tea and discuss it, then."

* * *

It was December 23rd when Cora was startled from her afternoon reading by a sharp rap on the front door of the townhome. The distraction was not at all unwelcome, though, and it wasn't even a true distraction. Cora had been staring at the same page of _The Bostonians_ for nearly an hour.

So it was with some relief that Cora discarded the book on the chaise and listened for a footman to answer the door. Though she heard his voice before the young footman could walk the few steps from the main entrance to the drawing room to announce their visitor, the oddly familiar tone was altogether startling.

She had not spoken to Robert in nearly three weeks; it was the longest they had gone without contact since the first break of their engagement. And now, suddenly without any warning at all, he was standing before her looking equal parts delighted and terrified.

"I've done it," he announced before she had determined whether or not to be upset with him.

A smile threatened to sneak across her face.

"Done what, exactly?"

Exasperated, Robert reached into his right breast pocket and pulled out several crinkled pages. He held them out to her and then began to dig in his other pocket. Cora hardly had time to read what seemed to be her father's writing before Robert produced another parcel, this one far more familiar to her.

He held the red velvet ring box that he'd first presented to her at the end of the season. This time, though, he snapped it open without any hint of reservation or fear.

He took her hand, holding the ring just beyond her finger.

"I promise I will do everything in my power to see to your happiness," he added.

"Robert," Cora laughed, the elation now plain in her expression, "if you knew how many times I'd imagined this scene—"

"And in your imaginings you say yes?"

She nodded emphatically, allowing him to slip the ring back onto her finger.

Beaming, he took her face in his hands and kissed her soundly, feeling in that moment that what he had described as love to his father was perhaps only the beginning of his depth of feeling for Cora.

"Have I made you happy?" he asked, his hands moving down to hold her at the elbows. She was so close, so terribly, wonderfully close that he could smell her lavender scent. And it made his heart jump to think that this was, really, only the very beginning.

"Yes," she exclaimed, "perfectly so."

Robert picked her up, then, and spun her around once, the pages of her father's letter falling to the floor like flakes of snow. Later they could discuss the plans he'd begun to make, plans for her to spend the holiday at Downton and ideas of a wedding in February. But for now, all that seemed important was right before him, the faith that somehow he and Cora would prevail.


End file.
